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Markham mayor wants Amazon’s Jeff Bezos to ‘feel the love’

By Tim Kellytkelly@yrmg.com

Tues., May 8, 2018

Markham’s mayor wants Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to “feel the love.”

To signal its eagerness to land Amazon’s much-ballyhooed second North American headquarters, dubbed HQ2, Markham has put up signs at all its entrances signalling that the municipality is ‘Possible Home of Amazon HQ2.’

Markham has put up signs at all its entrances signalling the municipality is a ‘Possible Home of Amazon HQ2.’ (City of Markham)

That’s because the Jeff Bezos-led giant has cut its North American search for a second headquarters — the home office is in Seattle — down to a short list of 20 and the Greater Toronto Area is one of the candidates.

Among the GTA possibilities, Markham has a chance to be the home to Amazon, along with Vaughan and eight other sites including the city of Toronto.

The benefits of bringing Amazon in are massive and long-lasting.

They include millions of square feet of office space development, which would be needed in Markham Downtown, as well as thousands of units of housing, which presumably would be provided in Markham and elsewhere in the GTA.

It will take years to build the Amazon second headquarters, but the billions of dollars of investment involved led to a fierce bidding war among hundreds of municipalities in three countries in North America to get down to the final 20 municipalities.

Mayor Frank Scarpitti believes Markham has all the attributes Amazon is looking for when it comes to a second corporate headquarters.

“We have over 1,500 high-tech and life sciences companies here, with more than 37,000 employees ... we’re also one of the most diverse cities in all of Canada, with a very high percentage of post-secondary workforce to serve Amazon,” Scarpitti said Monday.

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He acknowledged that any of the sites selected in the GTA bid would be great for Canada, but believes Markham has the best “site in the bid.”

“We check off all the boxes when it comes to what Amazon is looking for: transportation network, transit network, the quality of life, restaurants, shops, new campus for York University coming to Markham,” he said.

“I want Jeff Bezos to feel the love here in Canada; he’s not getting much love in the United States,” he added referring to the feud Bezos is having with U.S. President Donald Trump over Amazon’s taxes and Bezos’ ownership of the Washington Post, a frequent media target of the president.

It’s not yet clear when Amazon will make a final decision on where it will locate its second headquarters.

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